It seems that in formerly Great Britain, if you want to order a specific model of vehicle, you may have to wait for your place in the quota to be filled.
Car makers are rationing sales of petrol and hybrid vehicles in Britain to avoid hefty net zero fines, according to one of the country’s biggest dealership chains.
Robert Forrester, chief executive of Vertu Motors, said manufacturers were delaying deliveries of cars until next year amid fears they will otherwise breach quotas set for them by the Government.
This means someone ordering a car today at some dealerships will not receive it until February, he said.
At the same time, Mr Forrester warned manufacturers and dealers were grappling with a glut of more expensive electric vehicles (EVs) that are “not easily finding homes”.
He said: “In some franchises there’s a restriction on supply of petrol cars and hybrid cars, which is actually where the demand is.
“It’s almost as if we can’t supply the cars that people want, but we’ve got plenty of the cars that maybe they don’t want.
“They [manufacturers] are trying to avoid the fines. So they’re constraining the ability for us to supply petrol cars in order to try and keep to the government targets.”
The chief executive blamed the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which requires at least 22pc of cars sold by manufacturers to be electric from this year.
There's more at the link.
Sounds like a neat bureaucratic rat-trap. They want to stop manufacturers producing certain types of vehicles, but they can't very well simply forbid them to do so - that would be a violation of the country's free market. Therefore, they mandate that a certain proportion of what they manufacture must conform to a bureaucratic prescription. If they fail to meet that proportion, they're fined very heavily - which they can't afford; so the manufacturers have no choice but to meet that mandate, even though their customers don't want the bureaucratically-approved vehicles.
The customers have no recourse at all, because the manufacturers are caught in a bureaucratic cleft stick. They can't afford to pay the fines for disobeying the regulations, and their customers won't pay the higher prices they'd need to charge to be able to pay those fines - so the customers have no choice but to wait for the cars they want.
I understand that there's a growing market in "car buying holidays". British residents go across the Channel for a week or two's holiday in France or Spain, and while they're there they buy the vehicle they want; then they bring it back with them, and register it in Britain. Apparently a number of models can even be had in right-hand-drive in Europe, so they'll be easier to manage on British roads. I wonder how long it'll take the bureaucrats to block that approach?
I also wonder how long it'll be before our bureaucrats try similar shenanigans here. Some states already are (California in particular). Will American consumers be willing to boycott manufacturers who won't produce the vehicles they want? Up until now, that hasn't been a factor. Watch this space . . .
Peter
10 comments:
Never underestimate the bureaucracy's ability to do EXACTLY what we don't want them to do...
“It’s almost as if we can’t supply the cars that people want, but we’ve got plenty of the cars that maybe they don’t want..."
Well! I've never heard of such a thing.
Who would have thought that something like this could ever happen?
"“It’s almost as if we can’t supply the cars that people want, but we’ve got plenty of the cars that maybe they don’t want."
What is the purpose of the "almost" in that sentence, since he has just finished describing exactly that situation? 😳
As far as "rules against buying a vehicle and importing it", there are already all sorts of those rules. For example, you can't buy a new Harley Davidson in the United States and import it into Canada. You can only do that with used bikes. Not sure who created the rule but the rumor is that it had something to do with granting an exclusive right to the Canadian market to Trev Deeley way back in 1917. Not sure how or why that would have anything to do with the Canadian government unless they passed a law to protect Canadian dealers at some point, but that's how it was when I worked at the dealership. For a while, after I left, the dealership was even advertising that they would help Canadians find used bikes in the US and do the paperwork for import for them as a service. They sold a lot of used bikes that way.
Such a perfect example of the late, Great, Britain...you need to get in the que, mate! Firearms? Let alone SELF-LOADING FIREARMS? Whuterya, a fookin' terrorist? Any kind of knife with a point? OY! The country has been on a downward slope since the mid-wars period, once the BEUROCRATS were in firm control. If it weren't for Churchill, the UK would be German speakers ....
One choice is to not buy anything. I mean really, if I can't buy what I want I won't spend money on what I am allowed to have.
Our host said:
I also wonder how long it'll be before our bureaucrats try similar shenanigans here.
In essence they did just that for years with the CAFE standards. The fleet fuel efficiency averages constrained the sales of performance cars in the late 80's. For example for Ford CAFE limited the number of V8 Mustangs they could sell. Allegedly they had to sell 5 Escorts or Fiestas for every 302 cu in. equipped Mustang. The "workaround" here was that trucks and utility vehicles (Large Vans and truck based SUV) did not count against CAFE so the F100's kept flying off the lot even thogh most of that period made a V8 look like it sipped fuel.
The rules must have been tweaked somewhere (or perhaps Ford just eats the penalty) as Ford no longer makes any automobiles other than Mustangs that are not SUV, commercial vans or pickup trucks. I think various flavors of the venerable F100 are their "big" money makers with things like the Mach E (feh electric "Mustang" SUV) and Lightning being practically loss leaders.
Don't know about "Great" Britain laws about vehicles, But Canada requires a non-Canada spec vehicle to be at least 15 years old for personal import. The USA requires it to be 25 years old, at least.
I am reading "People's Republic (Kelly Turnbull) by Kurt Schlichter:
https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Republic-Kurt-Schlichter/dp/1539018954/
The USA has split into three countries in the 2040s: the west coast, the north east, and flyover country. The west coast is a total disaster as environmental laws destroyed internal combustion engines and farms (no water !). Food and gasoline are severely rationed in the west coast People's Republic while the USA in flyover country has plenty of food and gasoline and few environmental laws.
In the decades I was in the retail car biz, a crude saying was, "There is an ass for every seat". In almost all new car sales there are two buyers, the customer and the lender. People may be coerced into buying something they don't want but the lenders are more difficult to coerce into making loans they don't want to make.
Since they're having to put people on lists to buy, maybe they could put the ones responsible for the mandate (and .gov) in the back of the line.
"Sorry MP, but your rules say we can only sell so many due to your rules, if there are any left- we'll be glad so sell you one.
....OR you can buy an EV right now."
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